The Actress and The Magician
by Sroa Dwin
Summary: Hannah decides to help her friend by running away in his name, so that he doesn't have to get married. But when she enters the Enchanted Forest, strange things start to happen. Rated cautiously. Please R&R.


Hello everyone. For those of you who have read my stories, yes, I know I should be updating, but this idea popped into my head and I just have to write it down. Don't worry, I'll try to update every weekend, both for this story and for Kagami no Hana Ryuu.

Alright, enough chitchat. Onto the story!

Disclaimer: I own everyone you don't immediately recognize. Figure it out. I'm not saying it again.

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Danaran was in trouble. He was the heir to the kingdom of Rosewall, due to the fact that his father the Palace Magician was the king's younger brother. The king had no children, so Danaran was treated like a prince.

But that was beside the point. Danaran was now to be betrothed to a neighboring princess, and he wasn't ready to be married yet. Worse, he had no real skills to speak of, which meant that once the king retired, he would be trapped ruling a kingdom. So he went to the one person he knew could help him.

Hannah Rynura.

Hannah Rynura was an actress his age. To be precise, she was the court minstrel's daughter. She was gifted with coppery red hair cut brutally short; it only went to her shoulders. She had deep blue eyes and pale, freckled skin. In a way, she was almost as beautiful as a princess, except she had a lot more common sense.

When she heard his predicament, she immediately knew what to do.

"Well, This is rather simple. You and I can trade places," she told him.

"But we don't look even look alike!" That was true: Danaran had dark eyes and dark hair. There was no way he could even pretend to be her.

"No, no, that's not what I meant," she explained. "You can appear as a new hire, we need new people anyway. And I'll take your place for you until I can run away in your name."

"But how will you escape the search parties?" asked Danaran.

"Simple: I'll disguise myself until I reach the Enchanted Forest. There's no way they could find me there," she replied confidently. He looked doubtfully at her.

"C'mon Dan," she said, exasperated. "You know that I've wanted to go adventuring for years now. This is my lucky break!"

"Well, alright. But you'll have to leave tonight, before I change my mind," he told her, finally giving in. She went and got a bag as Dan helped her pack.

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Sneaking out wasn't easy, but once she was out of the city, it became easier. She carried the bag that Dan had packed for her, along with a large tome of spells Dan's father gave her, and a walking staff her father had insisted she carry. After all, he told her, you never know when a good staff would be useful.

She kept her disguise until she reached the last village before she would reach the Enchanted Forest. She walked through the village, hoping she wasn't waking anyone up. The village was as silent as a ghost town. She began to feel nervous. Where was everyone? She had almost left the village when a man appeared in front of her.

He wore green and black robes and was holding a staff. He had black hair and hard green eyes. He was clearly a wizard.

"Well what do we have here," he sneered, leering at her. "A sorceress. Now what do we do with sorceresses?" She glared at him, readying her staff.

"Yah!" cried a group of people, coming out from behind the buildings. They started throwing stones at her. She ran, trying to avoid the stones. She was only able to avoid a few stones, and by the time the stones had stopped coming, she had many bruises all over herself. She also reached her destination.

She was in the Enchanted Forest.

The Enchanted Forest is a very interesting place. If you know what you're doing, you can find all manner of plants and animals which may or may not be able to help you in whatever you're trying to do. But if you don't watch what you're doing, you can end up enchanted or worse.

And Hannah had no knowledge on the Enchanted Forest whatsoever.

In fact, if she hadn't read all those fairy tales when she was little about princesses or knights who ate something the Enchanted Forest and got enchanted, she probably would have eaten some of those bright red and blue berries without hesitation.

Luckily for her, she didn't. Instead she pulled out the large spell book and began looking for a way to figure out where it was enchanted or not, and if it was to see if she could disenchant them. After, she was hungry.

Just as she had found a spell she could cast without too much difficulty that would supposedly disenchant any minor enchantments on inanimate objects, she started to hear a voice in the background. She decided to ignore it for the time being so she could try the spell. Besides, odd things were known to happen in the Enchanted Forest. She might just be hearing things.

As she cast the spell, she heard another voice shout out something. The result was a huge flash of light and a burning sensation on her face and hands. Then everything turned black.

When Hannah woke up, she found herself alone and lying on the ground close to where she had been standing. She looked at her hands and winced. Her hands were red, as if they were chapped. She suspected that her face also looked chapped.

Her stomach rumbled, reminding her of her original task: food. She looked at the berries, eyes narrowed. They didn't look any different than before. Well, there was only one way to find out if the spell worked or not. She picked a red berry and ate it.

At first nothing happened. The berry was quite sweet, and she was tempted to try some more. Then she suddenly felt a burning sensation on her lower back, like something was being wretched out of her. The fact that all the bones in her body felt like they were being compacted did nothing to help the situation. After what seemed like an eternity, the pain finally subsided.

She looked at her hands and bit back a yelp. Her hands were now black paws. She twitched her tail, noting that it was a fox tail. She could wiggle her ears, too. And now that she thought of it, everything seemed bigger than before. What in the name of Rosewall had happened to her?

She looked at the sky and gave a long, eloquent string of curses. It was close to sunset, and she had no place to stay for the night. She didn't know what was out there, but the last thing she wanted to do was face it at night. She looked at the vine. It, along with the blue berries, were glowing. Hannah thought that they might be able to give her some source of light, but decided that she didn't want to take anymore chances.

So she gathered her stuff and walked away from the vine, determined to find a safe place to stay.

It wasn't long before she found a large river. Seeing no way to go around it, she looked for a way to cross it. When she tested the current, it was strong. Fortunately, she found a path a stones sticking out of the water. She attached her staff to the outside of her pack as best she could and jumped onto the first stone.

She continued jumping onto the next stone until around the middle stone, when she slipped. Panicking, she desperately tried to reach the shore, but the current was too strong. The last thing she remembered was bouncing off the floor of the river with a thud, and then everything turned black.

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Okay everyone, here's the first chapter. FYI, this takes place a couple of years before the series starts. I'm also assuming that Telemain and Morwen know each other. Next time:

- What? Hannah's turned into a kid? And what do you mean, there's no cure?

- An alliance between witches and wizards? Impossible!

Please review!


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